Looking at the part and where it is used, I would guess that the purpose is strain relief to keep the strap off the metal assembly. There are a couple things I

Looking at the part and where it is used, I would guess that the purpose is strain relief to keep the strap off the metal assembly. There are a couple things I notice when I look at the shortage workaround. 1.Fake wood pieces are longer than the proper plastic piece(Why?). 2.Fake wood pieces are wrapped in green tape, proper plastic piece is not.(Speculation, metal strap edge cuts into fake wood. If so, how long will tape hold up with vibration?) 3.At least 2 different materials were used as a substitute, are these materials equivalent? Is there confidence in the supply chain of these parts that there was not a bad batch that will fail under heat or stress? 4.Overall quality of workmanship. In two of the 3 pictures, the lengths of the 2 fake wood pieces do not match. This points more to a production line workaround than a sanctioned fix. 5.The proper plastic piece has a larger area in contact with the cooler assembly than the fake wood pieces. This will result in more force being transferred to a point and possibly resulting in crushing damage to the assembly. I work in a facility that assembles heavy off road equipment, we do sometimes use BOM parts if we encounter a shortage. Unless the part is identical in fit and function i.e. using a slightly oversized hose clamp, we will go back and rework the machine so that it conforms to our quality standards before we ship it. If I was tasked with coming up with a replacement for the missing part, I would propose something like this: https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-Edge-Protector-2CXP7 https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-Edge-Prot... Rather than use something that looks obviously out of place.